Let's Play: Phantasie! (1st dungeon)

[sheek]

Note, I have never played this through before and it will be my first playthrough.


A multi-character Role-playing Odyssey!

Back cover/blurb:

It came on a diskette like this:

PHANTASIE I : THOLIE'S TALE

Newly arrived on the island of Gelnor, an adventurer entered the
remote town of Pelnor. From the deteriorating condition of the
once-prosperous shops, it was clear that things were amiss - just the
place where a courageous person might seek a worthy quest.

The adventurer hailed a passing citizen. "Where might I find
information about your town and land ?"

Looking furtively over his shoulder, the man tersely replied, "Ask for
Tholie at the inn," before scurrying away.

Sure enough, the adventurer found the town's storyteller sitting at
the back of the smoky, dimly lit common room.

"Hail," greeted the adventurer, as he took a seat on the rough-hewn
bench, "I've come to Gelnor to seek my fortune. Can you tell me the
tales of this land ?"

"Why certainly," said the old gnome. He waited for the adventurer to
buy him a tankard of brew and a meat pie before commencing his tale in
a soft sing-song voice.

"In the beginning, there was a barren vastness, filled only with stars
and light, and it was called the Astral Plane.

"Within this vastness, a place was created wherin dwelt Zeus and his
followers. The magical river Styx flowed 'round it all, and it was
called the Olympic Plane.

"Next, the earth and all things on it, living and dead, were created,
and it was called the Material Pla-"

"I already know the legends of how the world began!" interrupted the
adventurer. A look of disgust and disbelief made its way across the
youthful face. "I want to know about Gelnor and what's happening now.
Are there adventures, fortunes, for the likes of me ?"

"Ha!" Tholie briskly retorted. "Ever heard of the evil ones, called
Black Knights? There are adventures a-plenty with them, forsooth!"

The adventurers face lit up, and he leaned toward the storyteller.
"Yes! Tell me about the Black Knights!"

Tholie continued, "The Isle of Gelnor is divided by a chain of
mountains into two regions. The west is the traditional domain of
human and humanoid beings - with a few renegade orcs and lizard men -
dedicated to order and goodness; the east is inhabited by more exotic
creatures - dragons, trolls, and giants. These regions have been
waging war throughout the history of this great land. Pelnor, the
town we are now in, lies in the northwest corner..."

"Black Knights! What about the Black Knights?" demanded the
adventurer, interrupting once again.

"Patience!" roared Tholie. His fist banged the table. "I'm getting
there!

"Since the Great Invasion by the evil sorceror Nikademus, the Isle of
Gelnor has been terrorized by his merciless Black Knights. (The
citizens of this land hold such fear and emnity for these intruders
that it has even overshadowed their hatred for each other).

"To maintain their reign of terror, the Black Knights travel form town
to town, demanding sacrifices and homage. 'Though they travel in small
bands, no Gelnorian can yet claim to have defeated one.

"Any unfortunates who are espied by these evil ones must surrender all
their money or die. Worst still, the Black Knights may bring the wrath
of the gods upon those who oppose them. Few are willing to take the
risk."

"Defeating the Black Knights and destroying Nikademus is just the
quest I need to win my fame and fortune," exclaimed the adventurer.
"Where can I find them?"

"No one knows where Nikademus can be found, but you can start with the
Black Knights. You're bound to run into them if you travel in Gelnor."

Jumping up, the adventurer turned to leave. "I shall gather a band of
fellow seekers at the adventurer's Guild forthwith."

"A few words of advice," Tholie called out. "Whatever your success, it
is rumoured that new Black Knights are spawned in a fortress somewhere
in Gelnor. Godspeed, and may your sword be swift and the gods be with
you."

The town menu screen!

First thing to do as always is create a party... I already created one, fairly balanced I think but I created one too many. There's also a human priest not in the party who I think would be more useful than the extra thief. I've named randomly without imagination them because I have to for saving... and will be named after Codexers.

All the stats are pretty good , it's a re-roll system which gives you really random results (d20?) so I made sure no fighter had strength 3 or wizard with intelligence 3.

First come first served:

The Wizard has "Fireflash I" and priests "Healing I"

Everybody is equipped with a Club, Robes, and Small Shield at the moment, and we have ~1500 gold (256 gp each) to spend.

There's not much you can buy here for non-priest/wizards... so I'll list them:

Knife: 1 gp
Mace: 37 gp (for the fighters)
Magic I: 44 gp
Scroll VIII: 121 gp

"Magic" is a magic potion and a scroll gives you spells, and "scrolls" are actually game hints of which there are 20 in the entire realm... seems obvious to buy it.

Wizards and priests can learn spells through the training menu. There's a spell on offer for 22 gp called Quickness I.

The priest can buy Awaken or Vision for 22 gp, and choose only one.

Fighters/thieves can't purchase any new skills yet they need 50-100+ XP.




If you want to look at the rules (a lot to post and it's pretty straight forward anyway) you can find a manual here: (zipped notepad file)
http://project64.c64.org/games/m-z/index.html

 

[sheek]

Actually there are other races you can get if you choose "random race" which I didn't realize before.

RANDOM CREATURES are generally disliked by humans, so they must
pay hefty training fees. They can only be thieves or fighters.
When you select 'Random Creature', your character will be chosen
form one of the following :

- Gnolls are very strong, tall, dog-faced humanoids covered with
fuzzy yellow-brown hair.

- Goblins, very dexterous and ugly creatures, stand about 4 feet
tall. They have large fangs, pointed ears, and foul breath.

- Kobolds are small, old, dwarvish types, about 2 feet tall with
gnarled faces. They have low strength but high dexterity and
constitution.

- Lizard Men stand about 7 feet tall. Though humanoid, they are
reptilian in appearance with scales along their bodies, a heavy
tail (useful in fighting), claws and a forked tongue. They are as
strong as gnomes but not as bright, and they have good swimming
skills.

- Minotaurs look like humans with a bull's head and tail. They
have great strength.

- Ogres are large (8 feet), ugly humanoids, with squashed noses
and protruding jaws. They are one of the strongest, but dimmest
witted, of the races.

- Orcs are uglygoblin-types, and they are strong, with good
constitutions.

- Pixies are tiny creatures (2 feet tall), with pointed ears and
transparent wings. Their dexterity and intelligence run high.

- Sprites are charming, sociable, fairy-like creatures. Because
of their great dexterity and lack of strength, they make better
thieves than fighters.

- Trolls - with their thick, green, leathery skin - are renowned
for their height (7 feet), strength, clumsiness, and stupidity.

They have different stat limits (eg Troll 22 Strength, 12 Charisma), and only make sense as non-casters (thief/fighter). If someone wants one, I'll re-roll a character, and you get whatever random creature it is and the class that makes sense for it.

 

[Luzur]

i was pondering of playing trough the Phantasie aeriea, but now i can simply watch you do it, so count me in.

do you need furry pics like that other guy?

 

[mondblut]

I wanna be a troll fighter.

 

[sheek]

i was pondering of playing trough the Phantasie aeriea, but now i can simply watch you do it, so count me in.

do you need furry pics like that other guy?

No, I'm not a sicko... :evil:

Which character do you want?

I wanna be a troll fighter.

You can be a Lizardman Fighter with Dex/Con 17, Str 13, Int 14.

edit:
Or a Troll fighter with Con 19, Str 16, Dex 6. Not rolling any more.

 

[Luzur]

i was pondering of playing trough the Phantasie aeriea, but now i can simply watch you do it, so count me in.

do you need furry pics like that other guy?

No, I'm not a sicko... :evil:

Which character do you want?

thought it was better to ask first

i'll go with human fighter. always had a thing for armours and swords.

 

[Rabidredneck]

Gnome Wizard!!

I wanna be FWACKOOMING things left and right!

 

[sheek]

You're both in,

Left:
Human priest
Dwarf priest
Hobbit thief (sucks imo)
Human thief
Elf ranger

 

[Black_Willow]

Dwarf priest plz

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

I played through all three a while back.

I know you need a Minotaur in order to enter one of the dungeons in one of the games. I'm pretty sure it was the first, but its possible it was the second (I know its not the third).

I *strongly* recommend rerolling characters, particularly fighter-types, until you get high Str and Dex. High level equipment has rather high requirements. There are absolutely no class restrictions on who can use which equipment; its all attribute-based.

As I recall, the best weapon I ever found was the God Knife (and its guaranteed, if you know where to look), which requires (2 * Str + Dex >= 57). I think Trolls are the only ones who have a chance to use it straight from character creation, and they have to have near max attributes. Plus, there's armor and shields that take high Str, and bows (only in the third) that need high Dex and Str. There's a couple places to raise attributes in the series, but I can't remember if or where they are in the first game.

You'll also want high Int for your main spellcasters. The maximum number of spells they can get is based on it. I found it was generally better to skip the mid-level spells (the 2s and 3s), and just take the 1s and 4s (mostly for Healing, Fireflash, and whatever the multi-hit spells were). Transport (or whatever the spell that lets you move from town to town) is practically essential. Otherwise, your characters will probably age so fast they'll die before the end of the game. I remember the text that goes with dying from old age being kind of cool, though.

I believe the game only allows one of the unusual races to exist at a time (Trolls, Sprites, Kobolds, etc). So, if you want a particular race, create a dummy character of the other races. This will make it easier to come up with the race you want when the game is deciding which one to give you.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Human Monks rule...but that might have been Phantasie III.

I think this is also the game where there are a certain number of Black Knights running around that are like 100 feet tall, but again, might be Phantasie III.

Great game, but I remember playing and liking the c64 version better. It certainly had better graphics.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I'll be the noble human priest, dispensing sage-like advise.

 

[sheek]

Only one left! I think it it almost has to be a thief

 

[silver crowaxe]

I can have my name on the sucky hobbit.

 

[Luzur]

Great game, but I remember playing and liking the c64 version better. It certainly had better graphics.

agreed, far better then PC EGA version.

 

[mondblut]

Or a Troll fighter with Con 19, Str 16, Dex 6. Not rolling any more.

Hm.. I'd love a higher Dex, but ok. Save some potions of dexterity for me :D

 

[sheek]

OK mondblut is in, starting.

 

[sheek]

The valiant adventurers:

So I bought a magic potion for Redneck (Gnome), a mace for Luzur (there was only one unfortunately) and the first Scroll which I gave to keep to the wise Garfunkel.

Rabid bought Quickness I and one of the priests (forgot which) bought Awaken... which basically allows you to instantly wake all party members the first round of combat if you're surprised. Vision lets you see further on the travel map but can be bought later.

Garfunkel reads out what the scroll said:

No point hanging around, the party sets off

(town we were just in)

There's an inn that costs 250 gp to rest in (full HP/MP), because you apparently can't rest just anywhere (you can't rest in dungeons). We want to go to that dungeon in the hills to the north

Travel encounter occurs when we're almost there... the game automatically allocates a sentry.

Because you're surprised only Garfunkel gets to attack the first round then everyone else joins in, but it's no big deal, about 4 hit points lost to the party.

30 XP and a couple of coins gained

Found the dungeon:

Descriptions along the bottom... there are supposed to be a command line where you can type options (though none of them seem that useful) which I don't get

First dungeon encounter with Orcs as the scrolls said, I'll show some more screens for this first one:

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TOTALLY AVOID COMBAT IN PHANTASIE!!!

Here you can select an action for every party member every turn. At the moment I'm restricted to Thrust as attacks by weapons or Lunge which allows you to hit an enemy in the second rank at a penalty. Slash gives you more attacks at a damage penalty.

The basic strategy I'm trying to start with is 2-3 attackers, the hobbit parrying (need his skills more than combat ability), the mage either casting fireball or defending, and the priests attacking if they don't need to heal.

Another row of orcs appear as the front ones die

Health report... they do seem to be going for the Wizard the most, hoping that's intentional. Also seem to be disproportionate attacks on the Troll (mondblut)

Over in a couple of minutes, but Redneck almost used up all his mana - often does 6 damage a turn (insta-kill orc) but might have been worth saving.

Useless hobbit!

Forced to go through the other door

There are copy protection checks in the middle of the dungeon!

Plan to loop back around to that door I couldn't open and clear the NE sector.

Big kobold encounter

Adventurers make short work of them (actually thief was down to 2 hp, wizard 3 hp). Creatures often run in this game, sometimes when you've only killed 2/3 of them.

Found some robes and a mace, which could be given to a priest back in town.

Why is left to the DWARVEN PRIEST to pick the lock?? Well it opens

Some kind of barracks?

Ants were hiding in a dusty corner

Again thanks to the dwarf priest... I force the lazy hobbit to do it, and he doesn't kill himself

An easy 3-orc encounter immediately follows

And Luzur spots the first decent items (remember except the fighter you're all using clubs and wearing robes)

The Gnome detects a noise. I turned back, your choice to go ahead or go to the inn, redistribute gear, buy some skills and rest? (dungeons RESET once you leave)

The main thing is that the mage is out of magic points, and I can't see a way to use the magic potion I bought.


Garfunkel has about 2 magic points left and Willow around 5.

 

[Rabidredneck]

Discretion is the better part of valor (mage needs fwackooming fuel)

 

[sheek]

I think you should all be able to level up, which would make the thief and wizard less vulnerable, and maybe open locked doors you can't yet, but you have to clear the dungeon all in one go.

Human Monks rule...but that might have been Phantasie III.

The manual mentions Monks but I don't see them as an option in-game. They're also mentioned on the blurb on the box...

 

[Luzur]

looks like you need to heal the party, can tremember correctly but there shoudl be a fountain or something that can heal. (or that was in another Phantasie game...)

and btw dotn forget to write down the message you'll find on the wall somewhere, you'll need it later.

 

[DaveO]

You need a Minotaur to enter a specific dungeon in this game. I'd advise a party reroll.

 

[Anthony Davis]

You need a Minotaur to enter a specific dungeon in this game. I'd advise a party reroll.

Yeah...I think you are right. That sounds really familiar.

 

[sheek]

Is not being able to enter that dungeon game-breaking?

If so then I'll restart. Could do another Phantasie or an Amiga or Atari version if you think it's worthwhile (the graphics and interface certainly look better on the older versions).

 

[Anthony Davis]

Is not being able to enter that dungeon game-breaking?

If so then I'll restart. Could do another Phantasie or an Amiga or Atari version if you think it's worthwhile (the graphics and interface certainly look better on the older versions).

If you have the emulator then definitely do another platform, the c64 and amiga graphics are quite nice.

I personally think Phantasie III is the best of the bunch. Short enough for a live play and they vastly improved combat with the ability to place your own characters in different ranks and the ability have limbs removed.

I remember playing this game, rolling and rolling till I had the perfect party. My wizard got his arm cut off in like the second battle we had. Well, wizards needed both arms to cast spells, but there was no way I was going to lose this character after all the time I spent rolling him. I had to stick him in the rear with a shield and save up my money to buy a restore potion. I remember it taking quite a while.

edit: to answer your question...I don't remember if it is game breaking or not. Sorry.